These stuffed toy snakes are one of my most popular free patterns! They’re lots of fun for all ages to make.

Years ago I made a book weight – a simple tube of fabric filled with heavy metal pellets.

It was designed to hold a book open, but my daughter immediately saw it as a toy.

Of course.

She played with it all the time so I finally made one just for her – bright and colorful, with button eyes and a forked tongue, and filled with plastic pellets instead of expensive metal shot.

She still has that original snake. And she still plays with him all the time. Her response when I asked her about him was, “Well, you never know when you’re going to need a snake.”

How true.

Jo helped me make some modifications to the original design. The seams are on the inside now “to make him more smooth and snakelike.” The tongue is made of ribbon so it’s less likely to tear away. I asked her about rounding the head and tail to make him (somewhat) more realistic and got a resounding thumbs down. Okay then. Square-headed snake it is.

And so I bring you the new and improved – and FREE – Snake Charmers. These toy snakes are quick and easy to stitch up, small enough to fit in a pocket, and have a pleasing drapability (if you don’t fill them too full). They’re a good size to interact with action figures and all kinds of dolls. They’re surprisingly versatile little guys who make their way into all kinds of situations. I hope you enjoy them!

Do make more than one. When I told Jo she could have all the samples I made her response was, “Cool! Now I can have an invading horde attack my American Girl dolls.”

Cool indeed. 🙂

The links in the pattern all go to video tutorials that show that step in more detail.

Edit – Over on Flickr, Curlysue7795 commented on the fabrics I chose, and that reminded me that I meant to mention that in the post. For these snakes I chose fabrics that had wiggly stripes on them, and I centered the stripe so it ran down the backs of the snakes. You certainly don’t have to do this, but I think it’s a nice effect.

I make my snakes a little longer and add a piece of elastic inside through the length so it can coil up! Stuff loosely, pull the elastic from head to tail, stuff firmly, tug elastic and tack it in place, then stitch it up! Boing boing!

really cute, I’m going to make one of these to slip into my grandson’s pocket while we are at his sister’s ball game. Can’t wait to see his face 🙂 thanks for a nice freebee I like to try out a freebee before buying so that I get an idea of how the instructions are. Very easy to understand, I’ll be a customer all your patterns are great ( and fun)